


Doll History

by raven_aorla



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved, Watcher Entertainment
Genre: Crack, Gen, Genuine Doll Facts, Humor, Sara and Obi cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23457661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: Annabelle's out to kill Shane in person. The Professor has something to say about it.
Relationships: Shane Madej & the Professor
Comments: 24
Kudos: 155





	Doll History

A new plague of some kind was ravaging the mortal world now. Annabelle didn’t care about the details. What mattered to her was that, as they cowered in their own homes, humans had not been visiting her prison much lately, and were not being as diligent about maintenance. The wards and blessed objects holding her in a box grew weaker and weaker until she could make her escape.

Annabelle had her own, secret ways to travel when unencumbered by mystical chains. She knew exactly where she wanted to go first after she broke free from that zoo where she’d been constantly gawked at. And now here she was, about to climb onto the bed of that disrespectful oaf Shane Madej, gawkiest of the gawkers, who’d dared to mock and even threaten her. Nobody could protect him from her wrath. 

She wouldn’t directly harm the woman curled up next to Shane, but neither would Annabelle pity her reaction when she woke up the next morning to find her man strangled to death. By then Annabelle planned to be long gone. She didn’t feel an urge to kill Ryan, who’d been fairly polite. That being said, she wanted to give Ryan a few scratches, just some food for thought.

The clock struck three. The witching hour. The face of Annabelle’s current vessel was normally trapped in a permanent simper, but now she could move her sewn lips into nasty smile. She could feel her hands overcoming their usual soft paw shape, turn malleable, become deadly.

“In 1915,” a voice said suddenly, yet calmly, “cartoonist Jonny Gruelle secured a trademark for the Raggedy Ann design based on his daughter’s doll that he used to give cameos in his comic strip. The original was a worn rag doll that Marcella, the daughter, found in the attic in 1906 and fixed up with help from her parents. He came up with the unique triangular nose. Adorable triangular nose. Awwww, lookie that nose.”

Annabelle whipped around and saw a fuzzy blue _thing_ clamber down from a high shelf near the window. It was vaguely human-shaped, other than its skin, and wore beige clothes and a hat with fake glasses taped to its face. In an ancient demonic tongue, she snarled for it to go away.

“Nobody tells the Professor to go away when he’s on a history-recounting groove, especially not helltrash,” the Professor said, dropping onto the carpet and bumbling over. “I might need Shane’s help to talk at any other time, but my interests are constant.”

“dO YoU kNOW WHo i AM?” 

“Sure! When Marcella died tragically young from illness, Johnny Gruelle wrote a book containing a collection of stories he’d made up about Raggedy Anne to entertain Marcella. It was released in 1918 and the commercial version of the doll took off along with it. The man just wanted to keep his daughter alive in some way.”

“NOT whAt I mEANt yoU FOOl -”

“And you are specifically a Raggedy Ann doll either possessed by or manipulated by a demon, I forget exactly, yes, whatever.” The Professor opened his little satchel and took something small and round out. “It’s not as exciting as you think it is.”

“YoU DARE moCk Me?”

“Like creator, like created, honeybunch. Gruelle’s design, by the way, means that every Raggedy Ann doll is made with a cute lil’ heart. Originally they were candy or cardboard sewn inside, but yours is more likely to be silk-screened on. ”

An orange cat poked its head into the room, confused by the ruckus only such a magical species could detect, but Annabelle made it fall asleep as it stood. Cats were already keen on sleep. She decided to stop wasting her time on the blithering Professor and go straight for the strangling.

The Professor appeared right in front of her, on the other side of Shane’s sleeping body. His voice was no longer light and pleasant. “Your vessel is based on the work of a man who just wanted to tell stories to someone he loved, then the world by extension. I know a bit about that. I also know that we don’t just become real at this hour. So do symbols.”

The tiny oblong shape in his hand looked like candy of some sort. Before she had time to process the absurdity, the Professor chanted something in some other ancient tongue, but one she didn’t know. The last few words sounded like the English for “guide this jellybean”, though. He hurled it with pinpoint accuracy at her hidden heart.

There was a flash of light. 

She felt like she was falling and falling. 

Then Annabelle woke up in her box again, and screamed and cried and pounded on the walls until the Satanic cult figurine across from her told her to quiet down.

**Author's Note:**

> All the Raggedy Ann facts are from the book _KID STUFF: great toys from our childhood_ by David Hoffman.


End file.
